Bhansali lost his cool seeing a clean-shaven Ranveer on the sets of Ram Leela, who plays a character with ample facial fuzz

Mehul S Thakkar (MUMBAI MIRROR; September 19, 2012)

“He is not a director who is easily pleased,” Ranveer Singh had told this paper about Sanjay Leela Bhansali. And yet, the actor landed on the sets of Ram Leela with a clean-shaven face. Needless to say, the absence of the beard that was required for his Gujarati Romeo role in the film, did not go down too well with SLB. In fact, sources from the sets witnessed, perhaps for the first time, a fight over facial fuzz.

In a day and age, when most actors try their best to stay in character for the duration of a film – be it losing weight, getting a new hairstyle or going bald – what really provoked Ranveer to take out his shaving kit? According to sources, the actor wanted to go in for a look test for Ali Abbas Zafar’s next film with Yash Raj Films, Gunday. While the ‘test’ went just fine, little did Ranveer know what awaited him on the sets of Ram Leela.

“Ranveer did not really imagine that this could be such a big issue. He went for the look test and thought he could just use prosthetics for Ram Leela. Using fake beards isn’t new. And it would have been fine in a few days,” said a source close to the film.
But of course, ‘fake’ is not what the filmmaker had in mind. Bhansali, who had been pushing Ranveer to pick up a Gujarati accent and even learn ‘dandiya’ to make his character look original, lost his temper.

“There was a full blown fight on the sets. Bhansali really believes in Ranveer’s talent and he was rather upset to see him clean-shaven. They had been working really hard for the past few months to get the character right,” added the source.

However, all was well after a while. With a nifty touch of the makeup artist, who ensured there was no break in continuity, all was forgotten. In fact, they shot for a very special song in the film.

When contacted, the actor’s manager denied the story. But then, we aren’t surprised!